PrimeDko's page

I do read the room descriptions directly out of the book, yes. Those bits are meant to be. As are a few sections that explicitly call it out. "Read this as the player characters approach the giant light" and what have you.

And the remainder of the room description, do you have any experience using just the content from the book without making any or very few preliminary notes?

So, what I typically do is create a pdf for myself that is used for handling the game at the table, and hyperlink it so I can get through it quickly on my iPad. I take screen shots directly from my Paizo pdfs for room descriptions, maps, and monsters.

I can't share it, obviously, but for my Abomination Vaults campaign the first/landing page is the side view map of the dungeon, showing the 10 levels of the dungeon. Clicking in the name of each level takes me to the map of that level, and all of the numbers on the level map are hyperlinked to a room page.

Each room page has the room description along the left side, with my notes directly typed along the top of the page. Any read aloud text is highlighted. In the remaining space I place screen shots of the monster stats in the room. If any of the monsters are spellcasters, I have a second page for the room which has screen shots of all the spells listed in their stat blocks. I also add a link from the room name back to the floor map, and from each of the floor maps back to the side view map.

Since we were playing in person I also snagged screen shots of and enlarged most of the art in the book, then printed it out and kept it in a binder. When I wanted to show my players something it was pretty easy to flip to the page required and show them the art. This was most useful for NPCs and creepy stuff they find in the vaults, like the portrait on level 1. Now that we're transitioning to a projector I'll probably store them electronically so I can show them directly on the table when it is time to show them.

I created the pdf over a 3 day weekend for the combined Abomination vaults pdf, but it was ticky work. This method lends itself to megadungeons and works surprisingly well for hexploration for Kingmaker and Quest for Frozen Flame. I'm currently working on Outlaws of Alkenstar but I'm dividing it up by scenes instead of rooms when applicable, with a flow chart on the front page showing the order of the scenes and any possible branching paths. This is...

Your dedication is impressive, I thought what I did was already a lot, but you go even further. My schedule doesn't accommodate this level of preparation for the game. My main concern is the text and description of each room. I'm hesitant to rely solely on what's in the book when players enter a room, fearing it might take more time than necessary, creating a "loading screen" sensation for the game.

Me and my group have finished the adventure "Troubles in Otari" and now I'm about to start preparing to play "Abomination Vaults". However, I'm finding the complexity jump to be quite significant, as one of the books features a dungeon with 64 rooms. How do you manage all of this? Do you read directly from the book to the players? I usually make a brief summary/note of the physical description, encounter, treasure, and NPC of each room, but up until now, I've been dealing with dungeons of a maximum of 12 rooms. I would appreciate the opinions of those who have already played this adventure or have prepared large dungeons.

Detect Magic only tells you that something in the room, other than what is on you and your buddies, is magical. The Rank 4 version tells you what square the strongest magical source is in. You can omit it from your next casting to find other squares containing strong magical sources. This will allow you to get the number of magical effects in the room. Nothing more.

For example, let there be a room with both a Magical Trap and a waterfall that is falling up. Detect Magic at Rank 1 would automatically alert you to the presence of something magical. Detect Magic at Rank 4 would tell you there are in fact 2 magic sources, which squares they are in, and which of the two is stronger. This could prompt you to take the Seek action (GM rolls vs stealth DC of the Trap) to see if you can spot a Trap. If someone spots it, everyone in the party knows which squares to avoid and anyone in the party that has the necessary skills immediately know the methods by which to disarm it, but not what the trap does if it is triggered (which is discovered via Identify Magic). As for the waterfall falling up, it is pretty obviously magical, so no roll would be necessary to spot it.

Once you know something in the room is magical (or in attempt to find which thing in that square is magical), Read Aura tells you what school of magic the thing you targeted is (unless its illusion). If the waterfall is an illusion, you might detect a conjuration or necromancy (if its a blood waterfall) aura instead - matching whatever the illusions intended effect was. In a less conspicuous example, like an illusory stone wall, it could emit no aura whatsoever when you Read Aura - which could cause you to overlook it. Read Aura ensures that, when you attempt to Identify Magic, you are investigating something that is in fact magical.

Once you know what thing is magical, you can spend 10 minutes inspecting that singular thing attempting to Identify Magic, after which the GM rolls a secret check against the...

Thank you!

Are you asking this as a GM trying to follow the rules, or as a player trying to get information from the GM?

If you are the GM, you shouldn't be looking for loopholes in the rules to avoid telling your players information that they need to know in order to be successful at the game. The d20 is more than capable of introducing failure scenarios into the plot of the game in order to make things interesting. No need to contrive your own in addition.

If you are a player and the GM is actively trying not to let you know when you encounter something magical, check with them if they are actually trying to be part of a cooperative story-telling game. Because if that is not the case, then you either need a new GM or a new game system. PF2 is not a suitable game engine for a combative dynamic between the GM and the players.

I'm just a GM trying to understand the rules. I'm not trying to avoid telling anything. We had a similar situation in our game, we came up with a way to make it work, but we want to know the RAW way.

Detect Magic targets an entire area and indicates on the presence of magical auras. Not just items.

Detect Magic does not tell you if something specific is magical, at best it narrows a location to one square, but it could be anything in that square. In order to use Identify Magic you have to already know that an item, ongoing effect or location is magical.

The Identify Magic action states: "Once you discover that an item, location, or ongoing effect is magical, you can spend 10 minutes to try to identify the particulars of its magic." I can see how that would work for an item, with the cantrips Detect Magic and Read Aura (wich only targets objects). But how about the "ongoing effect" and the "location" part? how can one my players know if, let's say, a watterfall is magical and identify it's magic?